Nobel picks peace winner but identity is kept secret

Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

OSLO, Norway (AP) - The Nobel Peace Prize committee decided its 2001 award Friday in the shadow of terror attacks on the United States, with members sticking to a tradition of silence until the winner is announced next month.

"The committee has reached a decision, and it will be announced on Oct. 12. Beyond that, we have nothing to say," said Geir Lundestad, the committee's secretary.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the awards.

The final deliberations by the five-member committee came as the world's attention was focused on the Sept. 11 airborne attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - and the Bush administration's vow to avenge them.

However, Lundestad said the committee works from nominations made before a Feb. 1 deadline, usually basing their decision on events before that date. He said the winner was chosen from 136 nominations - 31 of them organizations and the rest individuals - during five meetings.

The United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, were seen as top prospects.

The committee itself never reveals the names of candidates, although some names are announced by those making the individual nominations.

This year, those names included U.S. peace broker Richard Holbrooke, the International Red Cross, Chinese Falun Gong movement founder Li Hongzhi, jailed Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, Japanese historian Saburo Iebaga, Thich Quang Do, a dissident Buddhist monk in Vietnam; former President Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. The European Court of Human Rights and Cuban President Fidel Castro were also among the publicly named nominees.

Stein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, said Annan and the United Nations would probably have been top candidates before the deadline and that world reaction to the terror attacks would seem to increase their chances.

"I think the strongest candidate this year by far is Kofi Annan, with the strong reason that he represents the entire United Nations system," he said Friday.

U.N. agencies have won four peace prizes, but none has gone to the world body itself.

The committee also could recognize multiple winner International Red Cross and its affiliates, recalling the first prize to the group's founder Jean Henry Dunant in 1901.

The Nobel Prizes this year are worth $934,000. Thirty-four past laureates are expected in Oslo for the centennial celebrations leading up to the Dec. 10 awards ceremony. Similar celebrations are planned in Stockholm, Sweden, where the other Nobel Prizes are awarded.

The prizes were created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and are always presented on the anniversary of his death in 1896.